This got me curious about how Job's ousting actually happened.
In 1985, Jobs apparently owned 15% of the total Apple stock. Wozniak presumably started out with the same share as Jobs, and the early 'garage' team was cut in from his holdings. Markkula became a 1/3 owner as the first investor and third employee, and was likely brought down to 15% as well during the 1980 IPO. The board apparently voted against Jobs unanimously - not to fire him, but to strip him of his management role.
So I definitely don't think it makes sense to claim Zuckerberg 'learned' from this. First, Jobs was never a majority shareholder, simply because there were three founders. Markkula voted against him and Wozniak had already sold many of his shares; this is like Page and Schmidt voting to oust Brin. And beyond that, you're exactly right; Apple went public fast as a consumer-electronics business looking to raise money, while the retained-control 'tech company' model was well-established before Zuckerberg could plausibly have IPOd.
Zuckerberg learnt to avoid ever getting in that position, which he did by cutting out everyone else as soon as possible, ruthlessly. And when it came to IPO, he made sure that power structure carried through. This was widely reported before and after (books, movies etc). This is why I’m saying there is little to complain about from a shareholder perspective: everybody knew what the game was and how good he was at playing it. If you step in a cave sporting a big sign that says LIONS’ DEN, how can you then complain that it contains lions?
I’m not saying this is particularly innovative, of course. What is remarkable is his ruthlessness to apply it shamelessly and at huge scale.
In 1985, Jobs apparently owned 15% of the total Apple stock. Wozniak presumably started out with the same share as Jobs, and the early 'garage' team was cut in from his holdings. Markkula became a 1/3 owner as the first investor and third employee, and was likely brought down to 15% as well during the 1980 IPO. The board apparently voted against Jobs unanimously - not to fire him, but to strip him of his management role.
So I definitely don't think it makes sense to claim Zuckerberg 'learned' from this. First, Jobs was never a majority shareholder, simply because there were three founders. Markkula voted against him and Wozniak had already sold many of his shares; this is like Page and Schmidt voting to oust Brin. And beyond that, you're exactly right; Apple went public fast as a consumer-electronics business looking to raise money, while the retained-control 'tech company' model was well-established before Zuckerberg could plausibly have IPOd.